Treatments for autistic children

Autism in children is associated with impairments in their social functioning and the way they process things going on around them as well as impairments in their communication skills. Children who have autism have a hard time interacting with people around them, no matter what age they are. The most debilitating affect on children who have this disorder is the difficult time they have in social interactions. This disorder is also very hard on the families of children who are autistic.

Treatments for autistic children need to take in every aspect of their daily lives. For this reason, treatments for autistic children can be very time consuming and expensive. If the parent is financially stable they need to have a good medical insurance that covers treatments for autistic children. At the moment, there is no cure for autism. Treatments should focus on changing the child’s behavior. These types of treatments are called behavioral treatments. Treatments that are aimed at changing the way the child thinks are called cognitive treatments. Combined together, these two treatments are referred to as cognitive-behavioral treatments. One way to teach autistic children how to play properly is to use video monitoring as a treatment tool. This is a behavioral treatment that involves using a video that shows people talking and acting out certain behaviors. This treatment has been shown to be effective in teaching autistic children how to improve their social interaction skills and how to pretend play appropriately. This type of treatment can help the child understand the emotions of other people as well.

Another treatment for autistic children is called social communication intervention. This is a behavioral treatment. The treatments involves both the parents and their autistic child attending sessions with a therapist that will help them all learn better communication skills. The therapist will also help the parent to become more educated about developmental psycholinguistics so they can work with their child better. The treatments usually last for six months with another six months of maintenance sessions is usually required after that. The parents and the autistic child must also practice their new communication skills at home during the treatment period. This type of treatment can help the child with reciprocal social interaction, how to engage in conversations and use expressive language appropriately. It also helps parent-child interaction and comprehension skills for the child.

Cognitive-behavior treatments can be done that focus on improving social interaction of children with high functioning autism. Interpersonal problem solving can be learned with this type of treatment. This type of treatment involves training the child educationally and in social-interpersonal interactions. The child is trained how to recognize external social cues as in the body language and facial expressions of others. Internal cues are also worked on that involve both thoughts and emotions. The autistic child is also taught how to understand the emotions of others and which ones can be affected by social situations. Cognitive-behavioral treatments for autistic children are done both at home and in the school. Teachers can give up to 3 hours each week of interpersonal problem solving and how to actions and behaviors can affect others.

Treatments for autistic children should follow the guidelines set for autism by the research institute for autism. There are various ways that progress of the treatments can be tracked. Parents can try another treatment if they are not seeing results from the current treatments for autistic children that are being done for their child. However, parents should know that it can take a few months before any major improvements can bee seen. Once the parent sees a major improvement they should continue on with that particular type of treatment for their autistic child. If no improvement is seen after a few months a different treatment option should be tried.

Last updated
on Nov 1st, 2010 and filed under Mental Health.
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